


Sol omnibus lucet

by awesomissima, crostiina



Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Rome, Alternate Universe - Gladiators, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Non-Magical, Angst and Tragedy, M/M, Ronan is a gladiator
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-18
Packaged: 2021-01-22 14:22:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21303533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/awesomissima/pseuds/awesomissima, https://archiveofourown.org/users/crostiina/pseuds/crostiina
Summary: What, Gladiator, about the sacred woods of Albion the Beautiful?What, Gladiator, about unforgotten loves and unrecovered scars?What, Gladiator, about your comforting dreams and cruel awakenings?And what , Magister, about the seductive lands of Syria?What, Magister, about your hard study and your remote freedom?What, Magister, about unforgotten mortifications and still bleeding wounds?What, warriors, about 'love conquers all'?(Ancient Rome!AU, Pynch.)
Relationships: Ronan Lynch/Adam Parrish
Comments: 9
Kudos: 47





	1. PRIMUS

**Author's Note:**

> Written by awesomissima  
Translated by crostiina

  1. ** D. XIII KAL. QVINT. Anno Domini LXXIX, POMPEI**

( 19th June, 79 A.D., Pompeii)

  
  
  


The sun was warm, tepid and comforting: it didn’t burn, it didn’t suffocate the way the insufferable one of the southern regions did. Dirt got into his shoes with every step but the pebbles only managed to tickle his feet: they didn’t cut, they didn’t burn.

He brought a hand to his forehead to shield his eyes from the sun and be able to see more clearly the town from a distance then he curled his lips in the shape of a smile, brushing the tall grass damp with morning dew with the tip of his fingers: he was home.

He breathed in deeply: the air lacked the scent of dust, of dye, the fetid smell of the outhouses, the suffocating stench of horse manure piled up at the corners of the streets. 

He noticed the grass moving, as if solicited by the steps of someone that he couldn’t see. He furrowed his brows but couldn't bring himself to worry about it: it was like he was unable to be disheartened, to feel anything even remotely negative. Everything was fashioned in a way that even he could find himself at peace.

Because he was, finally, home. By realizing that, miraculously, he could hear the murmur of the river, the laughter of the children playing on the riverside and he closed his eyes, abandoning himself once again to the sensations and the memories.

A warmth in his chest soothed even the part of him he knew to be irremediably wounded and interrupted, as if he could touch it, he brought a hand to his chest, to massage its core, raising his face to the sky and the warmth of the sunshine.

Then he was knocked backward, he fell ruinously to the ground but his back didn’t suffer one blow.

"Brader!¹"

His fingers disappeared automatically between Malloy’s blond locks: he was the child he remembered him to be and it didn’t seem weird to him that he hadn’t grown up after all those years. He felt the need to ignore reason, to refrain himself from ruining any of that with rationalizing but instead he smiled, brushing his fingertips over his forehead. He traced the edges of his eyebrows, of his perfect features up to one cheekbone, brushing it with his thumb, he pressed his fingertips in the dimple on his cheek and let out a laugh. Malloy’s weight over his chest was inconsistent, a tender pressure, the same way his arms tight around his waist were a warm hold, comforting and perfect: they felt like home.

They stared into each other’s eyes, the child smiled at him mischievously before licking his lips and opening them.

"Expergiscere.²"

Ronan raised one eyebrow because Malloy didn’t have to speak Latin, he couldn’t do it, he shouldn’t have done it and that was too much: nothing was enough anymore, nothing felt like home anymore but like a forgery, mystified.

Everything that was, was just there to show his weakness: he had fled the truth, finding comfort in something that had ceased to exist, once again he had gone back in the vicious cycle of what could never be. He caressed Malloy’s face again as his smile was already becoming melancholic, nostalgic, aware he had to abandon him again, of having to live once again the feeling of helplessness and cruel uselessness.

"Expergiscere."

He repeated in a voice that wasn’t even his anymore and he nodded because he had to leave him again but, this time, he could pretend he had been still alive.

He let himself fall back, his head hit the ground that had already ceased being soft: his home was already disappearing. He closed his eyes to spare himself from another oblivion.

He couldn’t hear the river anymore, he didn’t feel the sun brushing over his sin and the grass tickling his legs.

His hands lost consistency, Malloy’s hold and weight did the same and he held back an agonizing groan as a press began weighing down his chest once again: excruciating and asphyxiating.

"Expergiscere, gladiator! Per hanc supplicatione Minervae!³"

There was darkness, then cold, then water.

There were fingertips on his face altering his conscience, there was the foreign softness of caresses that made him want to stay still, to disobey: it would have been better if he was never to wake up again.

A slap hit him, right on that same cheek and he was quick to grab the hand that wounded him by the wrist, groaning as he opened his eyes.

There was fire, there was confusion, there was everything his brain didn't want and wasn't able to process because he had to keep on an aggressive expression, he had to be holding his grip tight but he saw his smile, he listened to the sheer mocking in his laugh for a while and realized he was actually laying on the ground because he was looking up at him.

"By Athena, you're alive, then."

He groaned, he wanted to ask him if it was used to hitting all the people he met solely to make sure they were still alive but he helt his throat dry, as he made an attempt to talk, he coughed.

The stranger brought a bowl to his lips and he drank, forgetting even to make sure it wasn't poison but his knuckles were so close, his finger so long and slender: in his mind, he started to formulate the notion that hands like those would have never been able to hurt him.

"You fainted right at my feet, you great warrior."

He sat up immediately and looked around suspiciously because he couldn't allow himself any weakness, especially in public: a weak gladiator was an useless gladiator, he didn't hold any value in the arena, he wasn't of any entertainment and, indeed, not even his death would have been exciting, there wasn't any amusement in a weak man that didn't hold on to his life, that didn't have the strength to fight another man or a fierce beast

After making sure he was in a secondary and isolated street, he laid his eyes on the other man, the sole witness of his momentarily shortcomings. He furrowed his brows, lowering his eyelids in an expression that he felt coming out as stern but was just concerned, worried: he hated the fact that now, since the last five years, his existed depended from the mood of everyone except from himself, from the sympathy he could inspire or the interest he could awaken in others.

He had been lucky with that -or as lucky as someone forced into slavery could be- his light eyes, his pale complexion and the drawings on his skin had made him interesting from the moment he had been brought there, they had spared his life regardless of the fact that he would have preferred to die when his village was destroyed. He thought, then, that struggle through that life, was the right punishment for his failure.

He felt a weight over his chest and tried to stand up, he felt the stranger's hands on his waist in an attempt to help him, guiding him to lean his back against the brick wall behind them.

He groaned again, he moved his hands away from his skin because they were warm like the sun from his dreams and that made them unsettling: something too familiar to be at the same time so foreign, especially since he still didn't know whether meeting him had been a good omen or his conviction.

The stranger raised both of his hands as if to state his innocence and he laid his head against the wall, his temples aching.

"No one saw you. I have been quick enough but you should rehydrate yourself, you are completely sunburnt."

Ronan raised an eyebrow and allowed himself to take a better look at him, he noticed golden skin: the stranger surely had no problem in dealing with the high temperatures or the burning heat of the sun, he proceeded along the curve of his neck and almost felt ashamed watching the intimate way the toga left shoulder and collarbone exposed. The toga wasn't dyed, it was simple and light: he didn't belong to the aristocracy. Behind him, placed on the ground, he noticed a pile of four books bound together by a leather strip: he wasn't a serf either.

He took another deep breath and moved his gaze to his face, on the freckles decorating his cheeks, covering his nose only to thin out more and more towards his forehead. His eyes had flecks of gold mixed in with their light and at the same time dark color.

He had to lower his eyelids over his own, feeling a kind of shame crawl under his skin once again.

"Who the fuck are you?" 

"Ádamòs."

"Greek."

"Almost."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

Their back and forth had been tight up to that point but got interrupted by the other's laughter, he couldn't make out whether he didn't want to answer of if he had really found it exhilarating. He turned his back to him to reacquire his books and slide them back under one arm, keeping them against his hip. He wanted to massage his temple but avoided doing it: it would have been another sign of weakness and no matter how much he wanted to trust him, without a reason, he carefully avoided doing it but allowed himself another lament as he straightened himself.

The other fixed the fibula on his shoulder, he looked at it and recognized that it belonged to some patrician gens.

"You are a tutor."

He said, in the end, because it had been easy putting the clues together: almost-greek, books, belonging to a gens, characteristic roman traits almost completely lacking. He had to be a  _ magister⁴ _ .

"You're a gladiator. You are Corvus."

"I am Corvus."

He confirmed mechanically and condescendingly, imitating his enunciation and his accent to mock him a bit while, with a breath, he massaged his neck.

He wasn't surprised by the fact that he had recognized him because, in his denial, he had always chosen to fight bare faced: an act of rebellion that had just ended up amusing, even more, the roman citizen instead. He was surprised, instead, by the fact that Àdàmos evidently had attended those indecent spectacles.

Because they were: war, battling for survival, defense, those were serious matters, fundamental values he had been raised with and that he had to humiliate and annihilate to bend himself to that heinous mechanism of deprivation.

Every time he killed a man and couldn't spare him, he prayed the Gods to have mercy on himself.

Every time he slashed the body of a beast, he apologized in silence.

"But you can't be called Corvus for real."

"I can't be called Corvus for real."

He repeated again, still imitating him but faking an annoyed puff. Àdamòs clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth, raising his eyebrows and he could understand what had awakened his curiosity. He followed the trajectory of his eyes and understood: of course, he was looking at the drawings creeping on one slide of his neck. He brought a hand to cover it, instinctively because that was another intimate thing that, instead, was about him. He felt stupid because, at that point, anyone could see his knots, his animals, his crosses: there wasn't intimacy for his desires anymore.

He felt unnerved and looked up to the sky, fixing his cape so that it covered at least most of the drawings, Àdamòs looked startled as he had noticed he had done something wrong and moved his books to the other arm, against his hip.

"Ronan."

"Barbarian."

"Almost."

"What does that mean?"

"Completely."

"You are all barbarians to me."

"Good for you."

He saw him laugh again and felt that he was tickling something between his ribs and his heart: he didn't know whether he liked it or not but he understood he had to leave. He straightened himself and breathed out, tried to walk away but he stopped, turning around to look at him before shrugging.

"Farewell."

"Farewell, Ronan."

And the way he had whispered his name, the way his accent in its eastern aftertaste had changed it, shook him, it shook him to the point he had to force his feet not to run while he turned his back to him and got walked away.

And he was fleeing, It was clear.  _ Almost _ .

  
  
  
  


  * ••

  
  
  


  1. ** D. VIII KAL. QVINT. Anno Domini LXXIX, POMPEI**

(24th June, 79 A.D., Pompei)

  
  


_ “Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant.”⁵ _

The words came out slow, he couldn't recognize them as his own, they looked remote and distant from his ears and even his eyes didn’t feel like they belonged to him because he was supposed to look at the head of the Gens Flavia⁶ of the Regio V⁷, the one who had ordered the ludi, the one who decided what to make of his life and his death, the one wanting to honor the recently deceased emperor with a ludic gladiatorial celebration.

He had to do it, he was supposed to do it but he couldn’t, because even far away on the terraces, on the left, not far from Rubeus Gneus⁸, next to his son, there was  _ him _ .

He didn’t know whether he hadn’t noticed him before, if he had been there even during the other fights, he just knew he was there at that moment and he met his gaze, recognized the golden flecks in his eyes and felt his stomach twist, his heart missing a beat and his lungs refusing to breathe for a few painful moments.

The almost-greek tilted his head in an elegant gesture, a quiet salutation, and he gritted his teeth: Ádamòs could have killed him faster than the Thracian⁹, beside him. And he had been tried specifically to be able to get him.

The horns vibrated, breaking the silence in honor of Vespasian and, automatically, declaring the beginning of the games

Ronan had to force himself to close his eyes for a moment, to breathe and take place in the center of the arena: he couldn’t let any distraction keep him from his task because his life depended on it, like every other time.

He didn’t want to think about it but, for some reason, he couldn’t allow himself to perish, not under Ádamòs’s eyes.

He held the daggers tight in his hands, bending his knees to stabilize his position, aware of the first move of Flamma¹⁰: he was ready to deflect his first hit because, as predicted, he had immediately charged him to strike him with his shie.

Ronan slipped on the dirt, his mouth filled up with dust, he spit it out and waved his hands to dissipate it, just in time to deflect the slice of his curved gladius¹¹, too late to stop him from lightly slicing his side.

He jumped backward and felt a drop of blood running over his hip: it was boiling hot. He took the time to judge the severity of his wound: it was barely a superficial scratch.

He met the gaze of his opponent, the grin his lips were bent into sent every shivers down his back because, in the cruel ripple of his mouth, he didn’t find the desire to win, but something worse: the desire to enjoy himself and put up a spectacle. Flamma didn’t care about his life, let alone everyone else’. Flamma killed even when the thumb wasn’t pointing downwards.

His armor, though, was heavy as a Thracian’ one could be, it slowed him down and it was the reason why Ronan had always chosen to remain a dimachaerus¹²: light armor, possible speed. Sure, his defenses were basically nonexistent, but if he was fast enough to dodge and hit, there was no point in defenses.

They had called him Corvus, at the beginning, then they added “Aspis”: the snake.

Because like a snake he allowed himself just a few strikes, quick and lethal, sudden and unpredictable.

What hadn’t been enough to protect the village, was in the arena.

Flamma stepped back, leaving him perplexed as he watched him drag his feet across the ground, he couldn’t grasp what he intended to do.

He furrowed his eyebrows while staying in his place, then suddenly Flamma got down, he saw him drop his weapon, filling his hand with dirt, then nothing at all.

He had momentarily blinded him throwing dust directly in his eyes, he covered them with one arm and felt a painful blow to his legs, he bent down and felt the same blow to his shoulder, he felt it dislocate from its axis and bit his lip until it bled to avoid giving him even the satisfaction of a lament.

He gasped for air but he knew he had to move, wander without a direction to avoid letting him aim, he knew he had to buy time until his sight came back.

He ran, swerving all the way to the edge of the arena and felt the walls of the dividers to orient himself and understand his position. He took a deep breath to listen, over the shouting of the crowd, to listen to the outside environment, the ground vibrating under the heavy steps of Flamma, he furrowed his brows and counted to four and a half, then raised both of his daggers, crossing them to block the gladius right in between: the screeching of metal against metal was a relief. He did it.

His eyes teared up and he could open them, because lubrification had ran its course and he met Flamma’s eyes once again, and this time he allowed himself a grin too.

He tightened his daggers around his blade, held them tights as he rolled his wrists and arms: sudden, fast and strong. With a deep breath, he stripped him of his first weapon knowing it probably wasn’t the only one.

There wasn’t any more time to think.

The blows were quick, the struggles violent. The blades of his daggers gritted against the red dragon of Flamma’s shield.

It looked like there was no way either of them could win but, in hand-to-hand contact, Flamma started to feel the fatigue brought by his armor, he got slower and Ronan felt it, he could hear his labored breath and he knew he didn’t have to leave him any way to rest: it would have been lethal..

He kept going, he saw him fatigued and understood that he just needed on blow to the legs: Flamma fell, Ronan managed to grab his shield, he struck him once.

He heard him laugh and hit him again a second time.

He hit him a third time.

A fourth.

Flamma wasn’t laughing anymore and Ronan felt his fingers trembling as he dropped the shield. He bent down, checking his breathing as he already asked the Gods for forgiveness but with relief, he felt his breath brushing against his fingers.

He got up slowly, adrenaline allowing him to ignore the breathlessness of fatigue, the pain in his hip or the one in his shoulder. He looked up at the Consul waiting for his signal, hoping in his  _ pietas _ so that on that day of funereal  _ ludi _ , the emperor could remain the only dead to honor.

He couldn’t bring himself to look at Ádamòs because if he was to end Flamma, he didn’t want him to recognize him in the assassination he was to accomplish.

He held his breath, Rubeus Gneus raised his arm and he set his eyes on his thumb: he didn’t torture Ronan with the wait, he lifted it with decision and the crowd exploded in rounds of applauses.

Ronan could breathe again and brought a hand over his face to clean himself from the dust and, finally, he could look at Ádamós again.

He looked at his smile, at his hands clapping and fell to his knees.

He raised his face to the sky and left the sunshine brush over him.

Under Ádamòs’ eyes, that sun, seemed warm and comforting again.

  
  
  
  


  * ●●

  
  
  


The thermal water tickled the wound the same way salt barely burned over the cut but, certainly, it was better to grit his teeth at that moment than to find himself with an infection later on. 

Those were gestures he had seen performed by his older brother and his mother, before him.

As a child, he used to go to the river, he walked up to the source and let himself go, carried by the flow. He had learned that nature had disposed everything perfectly so that it could work: he just had to stay still, the strength of the flowing always pulled him toward the center, there wasn't really the risk to crash.

He closed his eyes, leaped and let himself be carried to the riverbank.

Sometimes, though, he happened to inadvertently scratch himself, coming home he knew he was to endure what he considered to be torture: his mother's hands, always the source of caresses and beautiful things, disinfected his wounds regardless of his complaint.

He had never understood its importance.

Not even later on.

After every fight he knew that Declan would have reached him, forcing him to strip down and repeat that uncomfortable process even on the smallest cut. And even he did it regardless of his wails and insults, he did it answering with his same strength but his mother's gentleness.

And he hadn't understood.

He understood after his first training at the school for gladiators instead.

He had ignored a superficial wound, like the one Flamma had left him with, and the following day he had found himself agonizing in a deliring fever, weakened by pain and fatigue.

He had learned to give importance to certain gestures, now that no one was there to do them for him.

He fixed his gaze, almost glazed, on the fountain of the cavea gladiatoria¹³ and held the coarse rag between his fingers, he thought about the river, he thought about too many things to realize he wasn't alone.

He felt fingers brushing over his dislocated shoulder and he didn't know how but managed to recognize them immediately, they had already been burned in his tactile memory.

He should have felt ready, then, to meet Ádamós' gaze but when he turned around he felt his heart miss a beat.

Twisting his waist, he let out a pained moan, triggered by the pain in his shoulder, but the other didn't speak, he dragged his hand over his shoulder blade and Ronan let him touch him, he let him touch his drawings and knots, and crosses, and ravens.

He gritted his teeth, he closed his eyes when, with a flick of his wrist, the other forced his shoulder back into its axis: an excruciating but necessary pain and after a few seconds, it stopped hurting.

He looked up to him again, letting himself slide to the right over the bench to leave him space to sit, silently inviting him to do it. 

Àdamòs sat down beside him and they looked at each other again, in silence.

He wanted to get away with him, ignoring his prize, but he had duties and those duties, that time, included his participation to the private celebrations of the Gens Flavia, a great honor for the winner. 

Next to Ádamòs, however, no gods-given honor looked better than the one of looking at him in silence.

Ádamòs brought his hand over his shoulder again, he held it and, to Ronan, it felt like the felts of the forest brushing against him. He closed his eyes and felt his fingertips become refreshment, fresh water from the spring, and he decided to allow himself a breath of relief, abandoning his defenses without even realizing it. Again.

Those hands would have never been able to hurt him.

"I was bought by the Gens Flavia when I was seventeen."

He told him, at one point but he nodded absentmindedly without elaborating that information, without linking it to what it implied: following the console's family in Oplontis, to his summer residence, gave him the chance to stay with him.

He didn't think about it, abandoned to those sensation, engaged by a sense of peace he hadn't felt in years .

Going back to reality was traumatic because Ádamòs' fingers slipped away from his skins and he opened his eyes, furrowing his brows, was on the verge to grab his wrist to bring everything back to the state of ecstasy of the previous moment, then he understood.

He listened to the steps getting closer and turned toward the entrance, examined every wedge of the arch all the way to the top, then finally the owner revealed himself: the son of Secundus Flavius Rubeus Gneus, Tertius Flavius Rubeus Gneus.

He jumped to his feet before kneeling.

"I'm pained by your loss."

"I never met my uncle. Rise, gladiator."

He arched his brow and looked up because his tone almost felt mocking but the beauty of Tertius seemed to have been carved in marble by Pigmalion himself, there was perfection in every trait, even in the fold of his clavicle left uncovered by the purple drape.

He got up and licked his chapped lips.

Ádamòs laid his hand on his shoulder again.

"Gneus, here is your champion."

"Not mine, you know I'm not fond of these  _ ludi _ ."

Ronan lowered his eyelids: his tone, his words, even his intention didn't look like the one traditionally used between master and servant but he didn't know what to say, he didn't know what to think, because Àdamòs fingers were still pressed against his skin and, for a few moments, everything ceased to exist.

"Oh, Corvus. Do you know Ádamòs of Antiochia?"

It was Ádamòs himself he looked at with the corner of his eye as he swallowed.

"Almost."

He answered. The other looked back at him and shrugged.

"Completely."

And it felt like the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¹ Brader: "brother" in ancient celtic.  
² Expergiscere: "wake up" in latin.  
³ Expergiscere, gladiator! Per hanc supplicatione Minervae!: "wake up, gladiator! Through the intercession of Minerva"  
⁴ Magister: "tutor"  
⁵ Ave Caesar, morituri te salutant.: "Hail, Emperor, those who are about to die salute you." Despite its popularization in later times, the phrase is not recorded elsewhere in Roman history but putting this phrase is my own poetic license.  
⁶Gens Flavia: I choose this gens because it was the one of the emperor on 79 dc  
⁷ Regio V: the region of Pompeii, Oplontis, Stabia, Nocera, Herculaneum.  
⁸ Rubeus Gneus: unfortunately "Richard" is not a latin name so I chose one that make a similar idea of pretentious and pompous.  
⁹ Thracian: it was a type of Roman gladiator, armed in the Thracian style. Thracia corresponded basically to Bulgaria. Guess who is this dude.  
¹⁰ Flamma: "Flame"  
¹¹ Gladius: "Sword"  
¹² Dimachaerus: was a type of Roman gladiator that fought with two swords or knives. The name is the Latin-language borrowing of the Greek word διμάχαιρος meaning "bearing two knives".  
¹³ cavea gladiatoria: "enclosure" adibited to gladiators 
> 
> Awesomissima:
> 
> AVE!  
Here we are: me and the love of my life in this ecstatic symposium. I have loved working with her and her talent because she knows me and my writing style as if it was hers own!  
I'm a Latin teacher in high school and, some days ago, while I was explaining The revolution of Spartacus to my students, I thought about an Au. And that's how the idea of this fic was born.  
I live basically in Oplontis and really near Pompei so I thought it was better to write about something I know completely.  
I needed to write this stuff and cristina, proposed to translate it in English herself and I trust her enough to leave my life in her hands. She's so good! And so precious!  
And that's how this fic has grown up.  
We have literally worked on it for 48 hours!  
This project is so important to me and to her and I hope that everyone who read it, enjoyed it as much as we have loved writing it.  
I have to thank Crostiina and I want to allow myself to say in public that, god, I love her so much that sometimes is absurd!  
Thank you for reading and
> 
> HASTA LA VISTA.
> 
> crostiina:
> 
> I just edited a lot of extremely nice words about myself, so it's hard to think about something to say, but this is truly a passion and couple project and I needed to leave my input somewhere. I've known Gigia for a while, now, and I know how talented she is and it felt right, for once, using my (mediocre) skills to help her write what she really wants without having to fight with weird constructs and every kind of burden that learning another language can bring. I love her work, I love her idea and I'm, truly, as happy as I could possible be to help her in any part of the process.  
I love this story and I lover her to death and I know you'll love both too.


	2. SECUNDUS

**D. VIII KAL. QVINT. Anno Domini LXXIX, POMPEI**

(24th June, 79 A.D., Pompei)

“_ Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.¹” _   
  
He hadn’t been able to refrain himself from commenting, before he could even announce his own presence.

In reality, he had been observing the gladiator for a while, he had concealed his presence, hidden between the columns of the peristyle and the mosaics on the walls, aided by the shadows of the oleanders of the garden. Ronan had stayed still in front of the lararium², instead, and Adamòs couldn’t tell whether he was praying or just contemplating.  
He had decided to stay in silence and observe his silhouette, his intense gaze over the Lari Familiari of the gens Flavia and he doubted Ronan was targeting prayers to deities that didn’t belong to him but then he closed his eyes and Adamòs knew he had unknowingly taken part in a moment so intimate and personal, it left him still and petrified.

There was, in the calm of the warrior, something that still kept itself feral, wild, something that hinted at a feigned relaxation of the limbs and the mind: his jaw was tense, the veins in his neck were pronounced and his arms laid rigidly on either side but his face was turned upwards, toward the sun, and his eyelids were closed over his eyes.

To him, he resembled a God, he thought that if Diana was ever to reveal herself in masculine shape, she would have chosen Ronan’s because he looked eternal, regardless of his young age, intimidating as an oak while still swift as a reed.

With that thought, he had concealed himself better behind the column, following the shape of a peacock painted over the adjacent wall.

There had been a time in his life in which he had honestly prayed to Diana - or Artemis, as she was being called at that time -, in Anat’s temple, along the walk of Damascus.

Not too many years before yet they felt like centuries to him. 

He laid his head against the grooves and closed his eyes too trying to chase away every memory belonging to a life that didn’t exist anymore and of which, certainly, he wouldn’t regret his condition but a naive and gullible forma mentis that allowed him to still carry a glimmer of hope.

He had been five years old, he ran along the shore of the Mare Nostrum³, stirred the fishnets that had just been repaired and threw himself in the sea breeze. It was one, singular moment that didn’t mean anything and, in fact, he didn’t even know whether it was a memory or a dream but he envied the carelessness and the simplicity of a mind that still hadn’t known anything outside of his home and the small rowboat of his family.

Antiochia looked way too far, then, but the child that he had been had a conscience of its existence. Not of Rome’s, not of the empire and not of himself, that he imagined a fisherman unlike anyone else in his village on the shore of Syria.

In that bubble of beautiful ignorance happiness was easy regardless of his father but a bubble, by its definition, was destined to pop and his bubble popped when a man from the rich city came to his village.

Baltazar had been showered in gifts and any kind of service, in every home he visited it looked like the emperor himself had come and in his house nonetheless. His mother had hanged to the doors masks and silk pellets, their most precious and propitiatory belongings, she had forbidden him from running to the sea, she had forbidden him from going outside, she had almost forbidden him to move to avoid that anything could be out of place.

He didn’t understand what wasn’t supposed to be out of place but Baltazar came to pay them a visit and he listened, he was captivated while his mind let himself be contaminated from that first taste of the world, from that first thirst for knowledge.

Adamòs had asked him about his precious garments, about the drawings decorating his hands and why he wore earrings and bracelets even if he wasn’t a woman.

Baltazar had answered every question, calmly, and that surprised Ádamòs because it seemed like he talked to him as one did to an adult: he liked it.

The man stayed longer at their house and stopped visiting the others, he came back every night to gift them with his presence. 

Every night his mother forbade him from doing anything, every night she made sure that everything was in its place.

On the last night, he understood what was supposed to be in its place: Ádamòs himself.

Because Baltazar announced his return to Antiochia, that night, and he announced that Ádamòs was to leave with him.

100 sesterces: that was the price to give up their first and only son.

Later, Ádamòs learned that a slave on the market was worth at least 1200, one with light eyes and amber skin 1400, one with hair made golden by the sun, even 1800.

Ronan, suddenly, dropped one of the wooden statues and brought him back to the present before the memories could get too heavy and Ádamòs left his hiding place.

“_ Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.” _

He said, then, revealing his presence, then he smiled and slowly got close but Ronan had jumped to his knees to take the wooden statue. Ádamòs imitated him laying his hand over one of his wrists to stop him, to calm that sudden outburst of strength and velocity. He felt like Ronan wasn’t able to contain all the immediacy of his temperament, no matter how hard he tried, they kept slipping away from him.

"Luckily you didn’t take down Priapus.⁴"

He whispered ironically before he met his frowning gaze, he felt the need to press his fingertips between his eyebrows, smoothing the tension lines and almost forcing him to relax but he refrained himself, because it felt like any other movement could have the make the strength and velocity he had noticed inside Ronan jump out again.

Ronan, indeed, looked as if he was going to say something but then he relaxed his face, lowering his eyes on the point where Ádamòs’ fingers met his skin and he wondered whether he felt the same shiver going through him.

He curled his lips and hissed before shrugging, which widened Ádamòs’ smile even if there was no clear reason for it. 

"It fell on its own, I wasn’t even looking at it."

"It doesn’t matter. It’s just a piece of wood."

All od a sudden he forgot while both of them were there, why Ronan and him were under the warm sun of the garden of Oplontis. Everything that wasn’t their skins touching and their eyes staring at each other then a peacock moved between the bushes and the Gladiatore jumped again, this time just with his head: it was true, he was always vigil. It intrigued Ádamòs, he wondered what kind of like could make someone so careful and worried about the slightest noise. He remembered him in the arena, a couple of hours before, he remembered he saw him being able to face his opponent with his head held high even deprived of his eyesight and he remembered him in the cavea too, equally alert regardless of his wounds, he remembered him grabbing his wrist, the same that hit him while he had been unconscious and realized he had been observing his every move, carefully and with a professional curiosity that belonged to scholars, he realized he had been incredibly attracted by him.

Attracted nit in the way it may have happened before because at that moment it wasn’t about the charm given by knowledge or the beauty of a body.

He wasn’t being prey of wine and ambrosia of the lupercalia⁵, his mind hadn’t been altered by any metrically perfect and amniotic verse.

Ronan hid inside him a different appeal, a wrathful and sometimes dark feeling, something powerful that, however, didn’t scare him but began to wrap around him, he just made him wish he could abandon himself to anything his hard gaze could conceal.

At the same time, though, he didn’t know how to act nor which move could be the next: Ronan didn’t look like anyone else and what attracted him towards him, didn’t feel like anything else he had felt up to that moment.

He licked his lips because they felt dry and the peacock flapped its wings as to remind them that in the main lounge there was still a sumptuous feast being held in honor of the emperor and the winner of the funereal ludi.

He got up slowly, Ronan did the same in silence and Ádamòs made his fingertips slip from his wrist to his palm, brushing over the lines marking it before he let his hand fall back against his side.

"The celebration waits for its champion."

"Its champion doesn’t know what the fuck he’s supposed to do."

"Just let himself go."

He watched his jaw tense once again and understood that it was too much to ask of him but he smiled, he brushed a hand over his shoulder, indulging it that yearn for touch that he still felt crawling under his skin.

He gestured at him to follow him.

The sun was setting.

  
  
  
  
  


  * ●●

  
  
  
  
  
  


"So, Corvus, what do you know about Egyptian Kings?"

Gneus had power that same question to him, nine years earlier: they had been both fifteen in the gigantic library of Antiochia; two boys and two strangers, that had come in for different reasons and had found themselves sharing the tight space dedicated to the most ancient texts. Gneus made a muffled sound as he tried to unlock the wheel connected to the stairs made to reach the taller shelves, Ádamòs had proposed to help him but the other one had refused, before asking him to teach him how to do it himself.

That came that question and Ádamòs had found himself catapulted between mythical stories from centuries before about Scorpion Kings and mysterious populations.

Now Gneus, laying on his left elbow against the triclinium, had sipped his Falerno and looked at Ronan. Ádamòs knew what he was going to ask him because Gneus' eyes had glimmered for a moment and his lips had curled upward, barely holding back the stream of words that was always bringing up on his tongue when he got around that specific topic.

He had then posed that question and, understandably, the Gladiator, had raised an eyebrow. He didn't answer immediately, but reached for a date and gave it a bite.

He was slow, in what he did, yet it was clearly noticeable how that imposed calm was making him impatient.

He doubted that Ronan could know anything about any Egyptian King, the same way as any other person not wealthy enough to allow themselves a culture or that hadn't been lucky enough to be bought for the purpose of having one. It wasn't really a thought his mind wanted to dwell on, anyway, already overshadowed by his silhouette, from the intricate drawings he could catch a glimpse of under his toga.

Ronan was facing away from him, laying on the triclinium, looking at Gneus and, then, Ádamòs, could allow himself to indulge with his eyes in the Gladiator's shoulders, dark swirls over a skin that was still light even after being burned under the sun, he could indulge in the curve of his neck and rise to the sharper shape of his Adam's apple on his throat.

In silence, sipping wine and submitting to the sound of the harp, admiring him in secret looked way better than listening to Gneus talk about Narmer again. Indeed, with the melodic him of his voice explaining how Anubis himself had told him to hank the Scorpion King for his survival, he had let himself slip until his temple laid over his arm and he had felt his own cheek barely scalded by the alcohol.

He had curled his lips into a thin smile and elongated a hand towards the cold milk that had just been served, sneakingly dipping his fingers.

He waited for Ronna to be distracted enough to let his fingertips trace the tension line between his shoulder blades, to make drops of cold milk run along his spine and when he noticed him tensing and shivering, he didn't hold back a satisfied laugh because he had managed to deflect his attention always alert and had caught him by surprise.

Ronan twisted his neck to face him and Ádamòs responded to his scolding gaze with his, barely mischievous, almost alluring, before shrugging and brushing his temple against the soft purple silk covering the gurney.

He closed his eyes knowing he was looking at him, now, and he breathed him deeply, even feigning a certain degree of innocence.

"Forgive me. I'm very clumsy."

He opened his eyes again and Ronan looked ready to give him the worst possible answer he could think of but, instead, he sighed almost melancholic and aching before he went back to looking at Gneus that, however, had already been captured by another guest. He raised a corner of his lips when Ronan turned to face him completely, leaning on his left elbow. 

Ádamòs noticed he had been tensed up to that moment, anxious at the risk that the other might have not appreciated his presence or his gesture maybe too bold for someone like him.

"You are so used to being around all of his food that you even play with it."

Those words hit him right in the chest, because he was accusing him of wastefulness, something he had always blamed Gneus of, so he raised his eyebrows and levered against his right elbow to pull himself up. So he reached for a date and pressed it against Ronan's lips, not delicately and maybe even impetuously until it was all the way in, letting it slide over his tongue before brushing his fingertip over it.

"Shut up."

Ronan almost looked in dismay as his face barely flushed a shade of pink and he, once again, though he may have exaggerated but the other one furrowed his eyebrows before bending his lips in a sharp and cruel grin, a stab right to his heart. He slowly chewed the date, swallowed and breathed out before taking a long sip of Falerno right under Ádamòs' careful eyes.

He averted his gaze, seemed to looking somewhere between his shoulder and Ádamòs closed his eyes again because he couldn't bare his presence so close without surrendering again to the desire to touch him, it wasn't good especially if he wasn't sure whether it was welcomed.

"I got it. The truth bothers you."

"No. It isn't the truth. It bothers me exactly because I know that it isn't when I wish it was."

Because if that were the truth, if he really were wealthy enough to allow himself to play with food, at that moment he would be a free man. He kept his eyes closed as memories, powerful, came back to his mind.

It had been a while since their first meeting, Gneus and him were sixteen and they were in Rome, at a tavern next to the Horrea.

Baltazar of Alexandria had decided to bring him with him during one of his long trips, he had allowed him to administer part of his precious good and even to assist to various spectacles. It had been a good day and he had admired the Capital letting himself be captured by everything, every color, every smell even the most fetid one, to the point of even letting himself indulge in some excess of wine and beer. He had looked at Gneus and he had confessed to him of having saved a small amount of money, that sooner or later he was going to buy his freedom. It had been a difficult and painful confession, it had made him feel exposed but in the intimacy of the tavern, Gneus and him had looked even equals and he had fooled himself into thinking he could still have a shred of a dream. It hadn't been long after that, that reality decided to fall over him like sable right to the back of his neck because Baltazar went back to his mansion in Rome, one day, as he was leaning over medicine texts and he had stroked his head.

_ 'Remember the day you turn seventeen, my dearest.' _ he told him with a fierce and satisfied smile _ 'because you have received the greatest honor a slave can be granted: the imperial gens has decided to buy you.' _.

And he, more than honored, had felt boiling with blond rage.

"But you were playing, with the food."

Again Ronan brought him back to the present and his low, warm and intimate tone made him open his eyes again, meeting his gaze that now held softer shades.

"If only even one of the drops that crossed your back could belong to me."

He answered with a sigh before he curled his lips too in the shade of a smile.

No, nothing belonged to him. His clothes, his shoes, his bracelets, every single breath he took didn't belong to him. He didn't even belong to himself and, probably, it was always going to be that way but in that moment, stealing whispers from Ronan, staring at each other with a deep understanding and secretly smiling at him, it felt like at least that belonged to him, that that moment was completely his regardless of the guests, the dancers, the lyres, the arps: it felt like only them existed and he so ardently wished that it really could be like that, for once.

That calm, that pure happiness reminded him the one it felt at five years old splashing in the seafoam, the only thing that had ever been his. He moved his gaze over Ronan's shoulder, he looked at Gneus and felt a small rush of rage going back with his mind.

There had been a moment, after Baltazar's revelation, in which he hadn't even been able to contain himself in front of the imperial dynasty: he had gone to the domes and he hadn't waited in the atrium, like a river in flood he had overflowed to Genus' cubicle to throw over him all of his rage and his frustration. The other had looked at him, he had listened to him as if he were his equal and that solely reminded him that, in reality, he wasn't.

_ 'You are cruel. _' he had whispered looking him in the eyes and the other had sighed. 

_ 'You said you wanted freedom, do you think I would treat you like a slave, or like a liberto? _'.

_ 'It's not the same. You don't get it. Now I belong to you and I will never be able to break free from the imperial gens. You took every hope away from me. You don't understand.' _, he had screamed in response.

It was true, Gneus didn't understand, he couldn't really understand because he had no way or possibility to do so: acting like a free man while still not being one was a farce, an illusion and it constantly reminded him he was under the moose of slavery in an even crueler way. Even if Gneus was to grant him freedom, it would have never been his because freedom isn't real if it was just a gift from someone else.

With that thought he furrowed his brows and Ronan seemed to understand something, even without talking, he brought his fingers to the space between his eyebrows to force him to relax and that left him completely shocked: as if he was reading inside of him, the other had found the courage to do something that he had only imagined just moments before.

"But still, my shivers belonged to you."

He grabbed his wrist to look him in the eyes and thought that that moment really belonged to him but that it also had to be completely his. He sat up and threw down all the Falerno that still remained in his cup without breaking his held from the other’s wrist.

Maybe Ronan didn’t know, but his words echoed loudly inside his chest, making his heart skip a bit like the first time he had met his gaze after he had hit him to bring him back to his senses. Next to him, the gladiator sat up too: they looked at each other and didn’t speak but, together, their fingers slipped around each other, intimately and slowly, until they intertwined together. They looked at each other again and Ádamòs let his gaze wander around the room before it lingered back on the gladiator, there was no need for him to nod because when he got up, Ronan did the same.

He felt the fingers wrapped in his hand tense up more and more with every step they took away from the feast, he felt their sweat and understood he was guiding Ronan towards something unknown.

The mere thought that a fearless warrior with so much knowledge in the art of war, could become so troubled approaching the art of love made shivers run along his back.

He looked at him in the corner of his eye and his image, even compared to the lavish and rich frescoes on the walls, was the only thing of real value his eyes could perceive. He observed his agitated frown, his jaw tensed once again and he wished he could unwind his nerves, calm him down the same way he wished he could untangle all the knots drawn across his back.

Everything he had learned in the art of love, all the feasts and bacchanals he had surrendered himself to now finally made sense: they had brought him there, so that everything could be right and so that he could have a way to tranquilize, untangle, venerate the frown and the distress of the warrior.

Entering his cubicle, he felt anxious too because it was like approaching an altar, something really sacred and important, a precious miracle directly allowed by the gods he didn’t believe in anymore.

"I don’t know what’s happening to me."

Ronan confessed, in the end, as they entered the threshold and, for once, Ádamòs realized he didn’t have a comprehensive answer, Ádamòs himself who had been bought, brought up and raised to always have all the answers. He stroked his palm with his thumb and stayed silent, looking at the light curtains of the canopy still closed, then he wet his lips and let go of his hands to reach the small amphora on the tripod close to the bed, filled two cups with the wine with his back on him and sighed.

"You’re letting yourself go."

"I never let myself go, I fight constantly."

"Ah. Me too."

The other grabbed his wrist, the cup fell to the ground spilling wine on the white tiles of the mosaic decorating the pavement and, now, they looked at each other in the eyes. The gesture didn’t hold predatory or sexual intentions, once again the warrior hadn’t been able to contain his strength and his velocity, he hadn’t been able to contain the electricity that Ádamòs had perceived from the first moment he had laid his eyes on him. Without a word, he had bent down to reach his lips but the kiss hadn’t been wild, impetuous the way anyone would have expected from Corvus. It was something gentle, a calm and adoring caress, maybe a little clumsy, followed by a heavy sigh.

Ádamòs brushed his neck with his free hand.

"I always fight."

He repeated looking him in the eyes and Ádamòs nodded, pressing his hand to the back of his neck.

"Me too."

He repeated back before letting himself lean against the wall, trapped between the surface and Ronan’s body.

"_ Unguibus et rostro. _"

He concluded before pushing him against himself again, to get the kiss he had desired since the beginning of their moments together. That kiss was different, slower and more pretentious, warmer and lascivious. Ádamòs traced the line where his lips parted with his tongue as his hand got free of his hold to lay on his hip, slowly brushing over it as their tongues intertwined. 

Their mouths tasted of wine, of dates and ambrosia, swollen with want for kisses they already desired.

As his fingers trailed up over Ronan’s back, feeling toned muscle tense up under his fingertips, Ádamòs breathed against his lips: something hot like the sun that had burned his skin.

Where the clever slowness of the preceptor knew how far to prolong the wait, which languid caresses could unfold a tense body, the directness of the gladiator acted as a counterweight.

He felt Ronan’s hands grab the fibula that held his toga to his shoulder, moving it aside to touch amber skin, still damp of scented oils.

He saw him lean down to feel his scent, the tip of his nose brushed against his neck and he let out a voluptuous breath.

It was the straw that broke the camel’s back because Ronan pulled at his garment until it left his chest bare, so that he could begin to go over his clavicle with burning touches of his lips.

Ádamòs leaned against the wall, allowing himself the time to be adored as he conceded the other the time to get used to his own desires and the need to second his deepest and most carnal instincts.

"You are perfect."

He whispered, directly against his neck. He said in a way that almost sounded painful, like he couldn’t refrain himself no matter how hard he had tried, and Ádamòs exhaled again because many had dedicated such words to him, times and times again, times and times again they had spent even more flattering words but never with such grave, heavy, truth, never with such precise and purposeful attention that it almost hurt. That moment belonged to both of them and it was real.

He let go of Ronan’s hip to stretch his hand and open the curtains of the canopy because he was only a man and those sensations were too many for a man alone.

He wanted to give in to that immediacy, to the impetuosity and the violence of that desire but he couldn’t: the desire to dedicate all of his attention and every precaution to a body that had known nothing but violence, from both war and hardship, was even stronger.

He laid a hand on his chest to make him step back and looked him in the eyes as his fingers met the fibula, the knots of the ties at his waist to let his toga slip to his feet. He stayed still for a few seconds letting Ronan look at him, without an ounce of shame as the other man’s eyes abandoned his own to go over his body and he guided him up to his bed, making him sit on the edge before he knelt down in front of him.

He kissed one of his knees as he took out his sandal, he kissed the other one as he took off the second one without ever breaking eye contact. He reached up to kiss him once again, to calm him down when the tense curve of his neck betrayed his uneasiness and brought his hands to untangle the knots of his tunic, slowly opening it up.

For every fragment of uncovered skin, he left kisses as if his life depended on it, guiding him to lay down as he leaned over him.

He went back to his mouth as his fingers, lightly, caressed his abdomen, tracing the lines of his muscles and having the care to follow along every scar, including the fresh one just inflicted by his last fight.

His lips let out a sigh as he saw the way Ronan barely arched toward his touch and, again, couldn’t hold back a surprised and raspy moan when he felt his knuckles, brushing against his erection before his fingers wrapped around it and began stroking it.

This wasn’t what he wanted, what he wanted was opening him up to the pleasures of the flesh, let him indulge in the immediacy of sex that, sometimes, could result more powerful than what belonged to war.

He moved his hand away and left a wet trail from his neck to his waist, careful to titillate his nipple with his tongue along the way.

Placing himself between his legs, he dragged his fingers along toned hips to press his thumbs over the prominent bones of his hips and laced once again his gaze with Ronan’s as he began to follow along the length of his erection with the tip of his tongue. Admiring Ronan open up, bend down to that initial pleasure was the most beautiful spectacle that his eyes had ever witnessed: the wonders of the world could only pale in comparison.

He took it in his mouth, every breath the other let out ringed back into his ear, echoing up to his chest and when his tongue worked closely over the tip, Ádamòs felt precum wetting his mouth, stealing a raspy moan from his lips. He watched the gladiator closely, his back arching and his hands reaching his hair, grabbing it delicately, his lips parting from breaths and gasping for air, he looked at his shoulders, his tense arms and the dark drawings he could glimpse over his light skin.

Suddenly, he let go of his erection and seeing Ronan snap up with his head to look at him generated laughter in him, something spontaneous, intimate, complicit. The other answered him with an annoyed and impatient groan that only contributed to his arousal: Ronan wanted him to the point of letting himself be seen, apart from the frown he showed everyone else.

"_ Patientia animi occultas divitias habet _.⁶"

He whispered teasingly and as an answer received a hiss, a word he didn’t understand fully but that from its tone he understood could be similar to an inference. He felt his hand pushing him down again but he tensed his neck, gripping his hips with his fingers and forcing him to turn around on his stomach.

He wanted to tell him: "Warrior, this is my field." but he stayed in silence admiring the drawings that up to that point he had only been able to admire in secret.

He kissed the back of his neck as his hands dragged his hips and was careful to follow every intricate line, with a gentleness that Ronan seemed to appreciate, considering his relaxed exhales.

He followed his back with his fingertips up to his ass, tracing its roundness while, slowly, his lips followed the same path kissing every vertebra out of his spine. Curious of the next reaction from the gladiator, Ádamòs looked up when his fingers lightly held him open allowing his tongue to caress his hole hidden in the cleft.

Once again Ronan didn’t disappoint because he turned his face towards him, looking almost enraged with his brows furrowed and he curled his lips in a smile as his tongue kept caressing him, applying light pressure against his hole.

Ronan let out a low moan, letting his head fall back forward again, laying his forehead against the fresh sheets and Ádamòs understood he was allowed to continue.

He dragged a hand between his body and the mattress to stroke his erection without diverting his attention from his hole, slowly penetrating it with his tongue. Ronan now looked for him pushing his hips back, something that almost sent Ádamòs out of his mind completely.

He brought two fingers to his tongue, to lubricate but, brushing against the delicate skin, he thought he wanted to spare Ronan every discomfort that wasn’t necessary, so he stepped back again but he laid a hand on his lower back as to reassure him that the wait wasn’t going to be a long one.

When he got up he noticed that Ronan had moved his cheek over the sheet, to follow him with an almost attentive gaze and even when he turned his back to him to dip his fingers in oil, he felt two flashes of ice planting himself into his skin, between his ribs all the way to reach his heart.

Ádamòs moved beside him, leaning over one elbow and he lowered his head to kiss him as one finger traced the cleft of his ass, they both exhaled when his fingertip started lightly pressing over his walls.

He laid his forehead against him, defeated by the way Ronan trusted himself to his care and even by the way Ádamòs himself had lowered any barrier in front of him.

He felt him shiver against his lips as he brushed against his prostate but he had no intention to play any of the games that would have normally amused him, for once, sex tangled with feelings leaving behind everything that could belong to the rest.

For every shiver that moved Ronan, a shiver moved him too, the same way it increased his own desire but he didn’t move until he was sure the other was ready.

He guided Ronan to lay on his back and caressed his face as he moved over him, then exchanging other ruined breaths as the tip of his erection pressed against his hole and one of his hands moved to stroke his member to make sure he wasn’t exclusively bothered by discomfort.

Ronan furrowed his brows and Ádamòs couldn’t refrain himself from caressing him again, going after his kisses as they merged into one.

If it hadn’t been for all the desire, for the eroticism and the passion, he could have cried for all the emotion galloping inside his chest: he had never even grazed something as important as that moment was, something as real, and, above all, he had never perceived a sense of sacred predestination.

Only after he saw Ronan relax, moving toward him, he started to move and the other grasped his arms, his fingers clung to his shoulders in a strong hold as his lips parted in a raspy and almost guttural sound.

Ronan was a force of nature and if he had been tame up to that moment, Ádamòs understood it was just because he was barely testing a foreign ground.

Everything was fast, the gladiator’s fingers brushed over his back and held on to his flesh to move him towards him, dictating the rhythm that pleased him the most, Ádamòs but his lower lip, panting because that hold, the almost feral way he had of looking for him was the last step over what remained of his sanity.

He moved his hips faster, dictating the same pace to the hand still stroking Ronan’s erection and got up on his knees, holding one of the gladiator’s legs up on his shoulder, the other took the chance to lever himself on his arms and kissed him.

That kiss tasted of Ronan, of Corvus’ battles, the ones in the arena and the ones that had brought him there, it was rough, fast, immediate, hungry.

He wrapped an arm around his neck to pull him closer, to keep rushing over his mouth: it had become an aggression in its own right.

If, again, they looked at each other in the eyes, he noticed the desire, the pleasure displayed even better by the moans the other one was trying to hold back and Ádamòs bit the inside of his cheek trying to hold back an orgasm he felt damnably close.

Then, it happened, Ronan held his fingers tighter on his shoulders, he tensed up and seemed to be gasping for air for a long moment before he let out a choked down moan, his orgasm left Ádamòs breathless and he had to force himself to slow down, cradling him in that intense pleasure without the refractory period turning it into discomfort once again.

Ronan didn’t seem of the same accord, he pushed him down to invert their positions and with another moan, he was beside him, back on his lips with his arm wrapped around his shoulder.

Ádamòs shook feeling his fingertips brushing over his chest and, mirroring him, brought his own to trace the outlines of Ronan’s sharp and still warm cheekbones.

He parted his lips, looking him in the eyes, when the other man’s hand wrapped around his erection opting for fast and direct strokes, it didn’t take much before he joined him, reaching the orgasm himself.

But, for once, everything was unimportant, the pleasure was unimportant, the orgasm was unimportant because he looked for his lips once again, he held on to him and wished he never had to move, he never had to say goodbye to that warmth and that perfection, he wished that their souls never went back to being two but that they could stay together joint in one perfect and only, created by the forging of the pieces, complementary because in what one of them lacked, the other offered the missing shard.

"_ Unguibus et rostro _."

Ronan whispered tightening the grip around his shoulders and he nodded, sighed, caressing his lips.

"_ Unguibus et Rostro _."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ¹ "Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum": 'So much evil could religion induce.' He's quoting De Rerum Natura by Lucrezio.  
² Lararium: the shrine of the lares in an ancient Roman home.  
³ Mare Nostrum: Mediterranean sea  
⁴ Priapus: a minor rustic fertility god, protector of livestock, fruit plants, gardens and male genitalia.  
⁵ Lupercalia: was an ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral annual festival,  
⁶Patientia animi occultas divitias habet: 'Patience is a true hidden richness', old latin saying
> 
> Awesomissima: We have worked very hard on this chapter in order to make the right idea of the every characters' contest. I can confidently say that I'm satisfied of how it ends.  
By the way, maybe I'm not objective because, as I said in the previous chapter, this work is the product of an intense collaboration between me and my love so i see it like our child born from our love.  
I want to thank Cristina so, for her talent in translating my writings and making them right as they are in italian.  
You know, sharing art and writings with someone is the most intimate things you could live and I feel blessed that my someone coincides with my love and my persona.  
I want to thank dldld, faye96 and hokay for their comment and appreciations, that mean a lot for me! Thank you.  
Last but not least, I want to thank whoever reads, leaves kudos, bookmarks or subscribes this work!  
See y'all in the next chapter!
> 
> HASTA LA VISTA.
> 
> crostiina: it always feels wrong to babble something after Gigia, especially since this is her work and these are her words and I am no more than a cog to make this works in English. I hope I made her work justice, this is a very important story to us and it deserves to be represented in the best way possible, but since this isn't my first language either I can only do my best.  
I'm thankful to be allowed to be part of this and I hope you're liking this, because I know I love this story to pieces and am absolutely obsessed with it.


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